Apr-Jul: I'll be in the South Pacific.
For six months, at 22
In 1950, a 22-year-old woman completed her coursework at a Bible school. One requirement remained: a six-month ministry internship.
She and ten of her peers left the school and crossed the border into a country that had declared war on Christians. Six months went by, and no one ever heard of those 11 students again.
But in 2003, a 75-year-old woman returned to the Bible school she had left half a century before, and she told her story there. All those years ago, her passport and identity papers had been taken away, trapping her in the country where she’d planned to stay just six months.
She shared Jesus with those around her, and her witness did not go unnoticed. The believers were driven apart by soldiers, and for years, she had to live without a single friend by her side, or a single page of Scripture.
As the missionary concluded his story, the numbers kept running through my head.
Twenty-two. Six months. Seventy-five.
I’m 22. I’m going away for six months.
I still feel I should be able to overcome fears and feelings of inadequacy with knowledge, preparation, experience, and success. But I don’t think that’s the way it’s supposed to work.
“I know Him whom I have believed.”
That’s what kept Paul going, and that’s what sustained the woman in the missionary’s story. Knowing Him.
So that must be the answer for me too?
categories stateside
Comments
Comment from Michaela
Time: February 27, 2006, 7:34 pm
Perhaps, but I recommend keeping your passport and identity papers in your pocket — always. Perhaps you could get them sewn into your flesh.
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